


The Christmas Mailbox service

by Pinetasticapple



Series: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes challenge [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, Nerd Dean, Popular Castiel, Pre-Relationship, anonymous letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 08:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1773049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinetasticapple/pseuds/Pinetasticapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day 3: Anonymous letters.</p><p>The Christmas mailbox was –in Dean’s opinion- a silly idea someone had come up with in order to lighten up everything before the holidays, as well as a way to ‘get to know people from other campuses’.</p><p>But hey, if it worked to 'talk' to Castiel Novak, he could go with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Christmas Mailbox service

**Author's Note:**

> I got carried away with this one. I'm so sorry. It's not even Christmas!
> 
> The amazing trope list: http://ghiraher.tumblr.com/post/37135733342/30-day-cheesy-tropes-challenge

The Christmas mailbox was –in Dean’s opinion- a silly idea someone had come up with in order to lighten up everything before the holidays, as well as a way to ‘get to know people from other campuses’.

It was simple: you just wrote letters to whoever you wanted on campus, you could leave them anonymous or with your name, and the committee would then act as mailmen to deliver them at a certain hour every day until everyone left home for Christmas. The rules of being nice and respect for other students was obvious and everyone was so hyped with the idea of sending Christmas messages that it wasn’t that necessary to repeat the behaviour rules for the mailbox.

Dean thought it was dumb since it was pretty obvious some people would end up loaded with mail while other poor bastards –like him- would end up with empty hands for two long weeks.

At least that’s what he told Charlie a few hours after he helped her put one mailbox in the library entrance. He knew she was part of the committee so he thought she would see some sense into the failure of their plan.

“Way ahead of you” she shook a finger at him “we will have a list of all the people and then write some good messages to those who seem to receive none or just one”

“Well that’s delightful, hallmark greetings for free” Dean snorted.

“You are such a Scrooge Dean” Charlie sighed “we haven’t even started and you already think you’ll end up empty handed, I will send you one every day now, in a pink envelope with a lot of glitter on it, you would love that”

“What? No Charlie that will mess up all my papers”

Charlie patted him on the shoulder “alright no glitter, but you never said no to the pink! And since you are so interested in this project, we could use some help with delivering letters”

Dean rolled his eyes, already regretting that he opened his mouth.

“Come on! We could use some help, please? You have some free hours after all”

“Alright fine, but you owe me for this”

“Why Dean I thought you would use this opportunity to send Castiel Novak some happy messages”

Dean blushed, his bag sliding off his shoulders with his sudden halt, leaving Charlie behind. It was no secret that Dean had a crush on Castiel Novak, one of the most popular guys in the whole university. It had been months ago, back when Dean was halfway through his first year, lost in the massive library looking for the right book for his Physics class when he saw Castiel walking on the opposite hallway, a book hiding half of his face. He looked mesmerized by whatever he was reading that wouldn’t notice he was walking towards a shelf.

If it wasn’t for Dean pulling him by the sweater he was wearing, Castiel would have ended up with a head injury with one of the said bookshelves. Castiel thanked him and kept walking but Dean had been captivated by how handsome the guy looked.

The second time he saw him was three days later when he saw Castiel eating under the big elm tree that was at the west side of the campus. He was leaning against the tree and absently gazing at a couple of bees that were making eight shapes around some flowers nearby. When Castiel looked away from them and locked gazes with Dean, he had blushed so much he was thankful Castiel wasn’t that close to him.

The most he managed to do was give him a little wave before scrambling to the closest building he was able to find.

The third time happened weeks later at one of the usual weekend parties where everyone was going to some of the popular guys’ place and get wasted. Dean had his ears covered with a beautiful headphone set his brother had given him for Christmas last year and was busy chewing the end of his pencil while trying to focus on his work when he saw a light by the window. He had his dorm on the third level so he thought it was a reflection until it happened again. When he leaned towards the window to see what was going on, he saw not only Castiel, but also many of the popular group of students making their way to one of their cars, some holding flashlights and others glowing sticks. Castiel had one over his head, bent like it was a halo and Dean felt all his possible chances of talking to him flying away.

Which, of course, lead to the present day with Charlie nudging on his side; holding a satchel on one hand and a stack of letters on the other one.

“Ready for the first day?” she asked with excitement.

“Remind me again why am I doing this?” Dean sighed as he grabbed the satchel. It could have been worse, he thought, he could have been forced to wear some ridiculous outfit.

“Because you need to get some Christmas spirit in you” she deadpanned “and because this is the perfect chance to get to properly know Novak”

“Sure, as if he’ll read the hundreds of letters he’ll probably be getting”

“You are exaggerating”

Dean didn’t bother to say he wasn’t exaggerating, instead choosing to pay attention to the instructions Charlie was giving him: he was going to deliver to the second and fourth room buildings every day for the two weeks the project was going to be. The small stacks were already colour coded and in essence it wasn’t as difficult as it sounded. Unfortunately that also meant he had to deliver to Castiel Novak as well.

“You totally did this on purpose”

“You hurt my feelings Dean, but you don’t have to give him anything if you don’t want to”

Dean looked at the stack with the stick saying ‘Novak’. They weren’t hundreds but a good twenty at least. The small envelope in his jacket pocket suddenly looked small and worthless.

“He’ll probably throw them away” he muttered “but fine, I better start with this, right?”

“That’s the spirit” Charlie patted his shoulder “off you go now”

~

Castiel was not a fan of the cold weather.

Cold weather usually meant wearing more clothes than usual, uncomfortable positions to hold his books and notes and the accidental hot coffee spill on his hands.

At least he had two weeks left of studies before going home, where he would stay the most time he could in a warm room.

He was so focused on the daydreaming that he ignored the knock at the door of his dormitory, until he caught out of the corner of his eye a slight movement under the door.

Castiel took his time in getting up and walking to open the door but the hallway was completely deserted. Instead he noticed a small stack of colourful envelopes at his feet.

“Must be the mailbox they mentioned yesterday” he mused as he picked them up, closing the door on his way back to the desk.

He had seen this coming, as Gabe would put it, his “lovers fan club” would of course take opportunity to send him endless messages of undying love confessions. The idea just made him shudder.

He was discarding most of them, obviously knowing who had sent them –since they wrote their names on top of it- when he noticed a plain white envelope with his name written in what seemed to be a quick manner.

Curiosity was biting the back of his head so he opted to open at least that one. Inside there was just a small piece of paper folded in half, with a shorter message inside:

“ _Hey Cas,_

_It must be weird calling you that when we have never had any real type of contact. Well, we had one once, a long while ago but it was only less than a minute._

_Anyway!_

_I’m guessing you would never get to read this. It probably looks lame but hey, just ahm, hope you have a nice day._

_You are an awesome person even if we haven’t had any direct contact. I just wanted to let you know that.”_

There was no signature or whatsoever but Cas found it surprisingly pleasant to read. He tucked the letter between his history books and made his way towards his first class.

~

“First day was a total success” Charlie exclaimed from Dean’s bed “no reports, no complaints, everyone got at least one good message!”

“Good to hear” Dean replied from his desk, busy with the equations he had to solve. The pink envelope Charlie had given him was just above his stack of papers and instead of a message was the drawing of one of the many ‘Game of Thrones’ houses with a Christmas tree behind them.

“And… did you get to see he who must not be named?”

“Charlie when you put him like that you make him sound all evil” Dean snorted at her.

“Well did you or did you not?”

“No, he probably wasn’t there”

Charlie hummed and stretched her legs “well, a little bird told me he was quite intrigued with a letter he received today”

“By that you mean your twitter account?”

“Bingo”

Dean rolled his eyes. He never understood what twitter was about but it was one of Charlie’s many ways to figure out what was going on campus so he would let her have that.

“Anyway, I happened to hear from Anna who heard from Gabriel that Castiel received a letter different than the rest” Dean hummed, reaching for his glass of water “it addressed him as Cas”

Dean coughed on his drink, pulling away from the desk in a flash.

“He… he read my letter?”

“It appears so” she smiled “are you sending him a second one?”

Dean felt his cheeks getting warm and it wasn’t the heater’s fault for it. Had Castiel Novak really bothered to read his short message? There wasn’t anything interesting or mad teenage like confessing in it and he still had read it?

“Dean?”

“I can’t believe he read it”

“That doesn’t answer my question”

“We… we’ll see Charlie, it might have been a coincidence”

~

The next day Castiel was absently passing the pages of one of his history books, looking for the right quotation for his essay when he heard the knock on the door. This time he got up to open and was surprised to see a tall, blond man with a satchel on his side and yet another stack of envelopes in his hand.

“Oh, hi” he said, a faint blush on his cheeks “I thought you wouldn’t be so I was just going to leave them under the door”

“I am working on an essay” Castiel replied, looking at the green eyes of the man in front of him “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

“What? No, I’m in another room building and uh, I’m studying engineering so no chance we uhm, have met”

“I see” Castiel said. He noticed the man still had the stack and offered his hand to take them “thank you”

“Yeah no problem, I mean, that’s what I was asked to do and uhm, I have to get going now, need to deliver the rest of these” he pointed at his satchel “have a nice day”

The guy took off before Castiel could give a reply.

Thinking he truly was busy, Castiel closed the door and decided to lie down on his bed to check the letters.

There were some from Balthazar and Gabriel, probably something taken out of a movie to tease him for the day, when he saw the same white envelope with his name written with the same calligraphy of yesterday.

He sat up and opened it with less care than yesterday:

_“Hey Cas,_

_Does it bother you if I call you Cas?_

_I just realized it is stupid for me to ask you this when you can’t really answer me._

_Thing is, I think you are an interesting person. I don’t know much about you, and it would be awesome to get to know you. I mean it as in talking, not any creep way I swear._

_Have a good day Cas”_

If Castiel smiled at the small message was a secret between him and the paper in his hands.

~

Dean didn’t mind receiving only one or two letters. It wasn’t something he really looked forwards. And delivering them wasn’t as bad as he had thought.

Thanks to Charlie’s insistence he kept writing to Cas every day for the next week. Just tiny things like hoping he had a good day, not to overstress with his essays, and in one he dared to suggest him to try the meat club sandwich at the corner store. He blamed that one on the time he saw Cas eating something similar.

That Friday as he knocked the door, he was surprised to find a half asleep Cas opening to receive him.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up” he quickly apologized, his toes curled inside his shoes because he’d be damned but Cas looked adorable when half awake.

“…Is fine” Cas yawned “I was about to wake up”

“Right, so… I’m just going to leave you these and be on my way” Dean was about to hand them over when Cas raised a hand.

“What’s your name?”

“What?”

Cas rubbed the sleep off his eyes, now looking slightly more lucid “you have been coming the entire week and I don’t even know your name”

“Oh, I’m Dean” Dean gave him a small smile “I forget to wear the name tag they gave me”

Cas nodded, this time grabbing the small stack.

“Well, I better get going” Dean was gripping the satchel hard against him, his nerves still trying to betray him in front of Cas “I’ll let you sleep now, see you on Monday Cas” and he took off to the other side of the hallway.

Castiel returned to lie down on his bed, the stack falling off his hands the moment he touched the pillow. He was about to get back to sleep when something made him jolt awake. The guy had called him ‘Cas’.

He looked at the mess of papers until he found the white envelope. It said the same thing about wishing him a nice day and talking about the campus and the sandwich store not far from there. But this time Cas noticed the other details outside of the writing. Like the small smudge on the upper corner and the faint marks of what seemed to be numbers and signs when Cas put the paper against the light.

He went to his desk drawer where he kept the other letters and checked the same thing on each one. He felt excited, happy that he was figuring out who this nice guy was. But more importantly, why was he not writing his name?

Dean saw him for a week and never tried to imply it was him giving the letters. And then there was the strange feeling that Castiel had indeed met him before. It wasn’t until during one of his afternoon lectures that he realized Dean was the same guy who he had met for a brief moment at the library months ago, and the same guy who stumbled on his feet when he was studying the bees. But that didn’t mean it was the same guy who was writing him the letters, was it?

He gave turns around this matter for the rest of the day, in the end he had bought a meat club sandwich and made his way back to his dorm when he saw Dean for a second time in the day. He was kneeling on the ground, picking books and papers that were scattered around him.

Castiel didn’t need to think twice before making his way towards him, picking up some papers that weren’t close to Dean. He took a slight look down and noticed how similar the handwriting was to his letters.

“Thanks man my bag just broke and I…” Dean’s voice faltered when he saw who was helping him “ah… thanks”

“Not a problem Dean” Castiel gave him a small smile, handling the papers “I was on my way back either way”

“Oh, I thought you were the type to go out for the weekend”

“Not really” Castiel shrugged “besides, it is too cold for me right now”

“Yeah, it kind of is” Dean agreed, shuffling all his stuff in his arms. Castiel smiled and looked at his own hand holding the paper bag that had held his sandwich when he thought of a final clue to figure out if Dean was the mystery writer.

“So, I went to try that place of the sandwich, it was better than what I thought it would be”

“Really? Because they have many specialities if you aren’t the full meat type of g…” Dean closed his mouth, his face suddenly bright red that Castiel was able to see the freckles on his nose.

“How did you know it was me?”

“It wasn’t easy” Castiel replied “but it was fun to figure it out, you mentioned you were in engineer right?” Dean nodded “your letters have the number marks if you pay enough attention to them”

Dean looked at his books, unsure of what to say or do until Cas grabbed a couple of them, holding them against him.

“Would you like to go get some coffee?”

“What?”

“I would like to know more about you Dean and as I said” Castiel pointed at the ground “I can’t stand the cold”

Dean blinked a few times, the blush still present on his face, but he managed to nod in agreement.

“Y…yeah I would like to get some coffee with you”

**Author's Note:**

> I should mention I don't have a beta reader and English is not my first language. So any grammar mistakes please let me know so I can fix them. Thanks!


End file.
